Yet, have linked the Yangtze river as the one of the biggest sources of global plastic pollution, claiming the river to be responsible for more than half of all marine plastic pollution, but more recent studies found that the, Philippines accounts for more than one-third. The main character is the employee's daughter, who never gets sent to school because she is helping her parents watch her younger siblings and sort through mountains of shredded plastic. An important implication is that improving the lives of the people who live in rural recycling hubs and engage in waste sorting and processing requires more than putting an end to waste importsespecially if imports are substituted with domestic waste, of which there is no shortage in China. Dr. Steven Svehlak and Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Dr. Payman Simoni agree. Since its release, the film has become indissociable from the issue of waste exports, and it gained even more prominence after July 2017, when the Chinese government announced a wide-ranging ban on foreign waste (yang laji) (Liebman 2018). ", A man and a child are reflected on a glass panel displaying a tiger at the Museum of Natural History in Beijing, Dec. 2, 2016. The doctors strangled or drowned those babies.". In the absence of any recognisably subversive content, I would argue that it was the image of China conveyed by Wangs bleak and shocking depiction of the countrys recycling sector that struck a nerve. The documentary is also a meditation on issues of gender inequality. His descendants inherited his d. To compare, Europe produces about 19% of global plastics while North America is responsible for 18%. In the 1990s, he says, family planning officials ambushed him in his home at night and beat him with sticks in an effort to convince his wife to abort their third son. Environmental News, Data Analysis, Research & Policy Solutions. Parents were not penalized for having twins, at least not according to the letter of the law. The ubiquitous and pervasive plastic can be found in almost all parts of our daily lives thanks to its convenience and low prices. August 4, 2020 1:46pm. trailer <<4243014C4E284DEB98C83941C307E81B>]/Prev 529831>> startxref 0 %%EOF 74 0 obj <>stream Get focused newsletters especially designed to be concise and easy to digest. China had 1 million more births in 2016 than in 2015, following the end of the one-child policy. In the film we witness Kun and his family looking for a new car, despite the fact that their old family van continues to serve them fairly well. Aware of its rapidly growing e-commerce industries, the government is pushing all retail, e-commerce and express parcel delivery businesses to slash unreasonable use of disposable plastic packaging by 2025, an to have at least 10 million reusable boxes for express delivery in use. Not only does the country consume, at least one fifth of the worlds plastics. 0000035823 00000 n 2014 and Persico 2010) and Zhao Liang (see Sorace 2017), among other leading Chinese independent filmmakers. Trailer for 'Plastic China' film by director Wang Jiuliang. Election. 0000023031 00000 n If we do nothing and continue to turn our beautiful world into a Wall-E-esque nightmare, then the fate of our civilization will be suicide by garbage. , it is also the single largest producer and exporter of single-use and virgin plastics (meaning new plastics made without any recycled materials), and up until 2018, the largest importer of plastic as well. After six months of getting to know two families who worked at one small plant, Wang was allowed intimate access to their lives. China Says It Will Allow Couples to Have 3 Children, Up From 2 The move is the Communist Party's latest attempt to reverse declining birthrates and avert a population crisis, but experts say it. (Liu 2014). She is especially protective of him. Summaries. Trailer for 'Plastic China' film by director Wang Jiuliang. Image by: Our World in Data. Beijing seems to be neither "biding its time" nor rising peacefully. But the legacy of the one-child rule is still painfully felt by many parents who suffered for having multiple children. Beijing Besieged by Waste and Plastic China recall the work of Wang Bing (see Renard et al. Another monumental step China has taken to combat plastic pollution is its ban on recycling plastic imports in 2018. Enforcement of the policy had begun to loosen by the early 2000s, as horrific stories of forced abortions and botched sterilizations caused policymakers to rethink the rule. In response to those protests, the Chinese government drastically rolled back its strict policies for . Not only does the country consume at least one fifth of the worlds plastics, it is also the single largest producer and exporter of single-use and virgin plastics (meaning new plastics made without any recycled materials), and up until 2018, the largest importer of plastic as well. "There is only one China and there is only one one-child policy, so it is kind of impossible to say the real effect of that was [of the policy]," he says. In March 2018, China's environment minister at the time, Li Ganjie, noted that China used to import around 4 to 4.5 million tons of solid, unrecyclable trash. What happened to the little girl in plastic China? A familiar margarine packet among the mountains of rubbish in a backyard recycling facility on China. This change will not be easy, but it must be done. Two of the more tragic examples - who were born identical twins and appear to be twinning themselves with duelling plastic surgeries - are French TV stars Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff. The seventh child, a boy, Liu Zhuang drowned at the age of five, and his mother says she cries every. For decades, China has relied on superficial policies targeting plastic to reduce waste in the country. The news hit hard in the United States, which is home to about 60,000 children adopted from China, mostly girls. hide caption. Boost this article During that time, imperial China was replaced by the Republic of China. 0000035786 00000 n Acquiring this potent status symbol allows them to have the feelingand give others the impressionthat they have achieved wealth, and moved up the social ladder. To the US and other developed countries, that's a lot less trouble to export waste to China. It was announced in late 2015 that the program was to end in early 2016. Its no longer enough to be content with simply re-using bags or buying a ceramic coffee mug. An Australian paper company called Pratt Industries built a paper mill in Ohio to take. Some of them were located in rural recycling hubs, but many were not. When the ancestral temples were destroyed most families lost the records of their extended family. Several experts I engaged with in recent months put forward the idea that the film prompted officials in Beijing to take this kind of action, or at least influenced them significantly (see also L 2018). Additionally, China currently tops the list of biggest greenhouse gas emitters though the US overtakes it for emissions per capita. One night in August 2008, the mother made a fateful decision. As a result, awareness of the social and environmental impact of the global trade in recyclables has increased substantially, both within and outside of China. His focus on the daily life of two families in a shared domestic space, where exploitation unfolds in an intimate setting, allows him to give an otherwise commonplace phenomenon a particularly raw and emotional dimension. In 2020 alone, China produced about 60 million tonnes of plastic waste, yet only 16 million tonnes of which was recycled, according to the China National Resources Recycling Association. It's margarine tubs, clamshells, deli containers. Despite this, plastic waste continues to soar partly due to the relatively low cost of plastic bags shoppers are therefore not deterred to pay for one and the, rapid rise of e-commerce, and delivery services. Yi-Jie, who lives in a spare room at the plant with her parents and siblings, spends her days working and constructing imaginary worlds atop the piles of trash that cover the ground. Twenty-something Kun is a hard worker with a dream of buying a new car to boost his social status. Posted in Article, Work of Arts. Second, this prevents us from understanding why the film was censored in China, when the denunciation of waste imports actually fits with the Chinese states increasingly restrictive policies on this issue since the 2010s. Waste incineration capabilities are to be greatly increased, with the aim of reaching up to burning 800,000 tons of urban domestic waste per day by 2025. After all, this type of message is consistent with recent official discourse and practice, which lay great emphasis on environmental protection, leadership in global trade, and national sovereignty. 2a cmAAASDMn,!T+FrHV`)sbg:\8B@}Np(D3uOGh1.\8}) n"%UtZ-)9Kn>{b^xFrn{g(dX J1( O. 0000020209 00000 n What could the family planning officials have done to her? He rose to prominence a few years ago thanks to his first film, Beijing Besieged by Waste (laji weicheng, 2012), which revealed the existence of a great number of unauthorised and unmonitored dumpsites around Beijing. Initially Feng. Yet, something in Plastic China must have bothered Chinese censors, and prompted them to intervene. . However, implementation of this reform only begun several years into the shooting of Plastic China (which lasted from 2011 to 2016), and remains patchy to this day. She wanted to avoid the "family planning officials" in her home village, just outside Linyi, a city of 11 million in China's northern Shandong province, where the policy's enforcement was especially violent. This means that people eating fish have also been consuming plastics. Plastic China: Directed by Jiuliang Wang. Our current pattern of manufacture, consume, discard is creating a chain of exploitation; it exploits the workers making our products, it exploits us through merciless advertising; and it exploits millions of poverty-stricken laborers working for a pittance like . The terror of such enforcement of birth limits was widespread in Linyi, even if residents were not themselves planning on giving birth. This ambitious plan requires the full participation of producers to consumers and is an inspirational idea, though I hadnt even heard of it before digging through plastic research, and it doesnt seem to be very widely discussed. A further issue highlighted in the film is that of conspicuous consumption. First, this narrow focus fails to do justice to the richness and complexity of Wangs second, cinema version of Plastic China, whichunlike the first version targeting the pressconstitutes a broad social commentary and critique. We all must initiate a seismic cultural shift that sees a serious slowing down of our relentless consumerism. Editor's note: This story contains descriptions that may be disturbing. hide caption. An old friend of hers, the blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng, knows full well what she and tens of thousands of other women in Linyi city went through. Global mismanaged waste in total. Please help us make our goal! Ontario. The daughter of a young plastic factory worker, Yi Jie, looks over a heap of plastic while cradling her baby sibling. 0000039672 00000 n And I was carrying a camera, so it was especially tough at the beginning. Single-use plastics are also made almost entirely from fossil fuels. As a grownup in China, I share a responsibility of finding ways to make the country a better place to live., James Camerons attack on Netflix gets 2 major things wrong and one right, Missing is a worn out techno-thriller less exciting than a doomscroll, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes could be the reboot the franchise needs, By subscribing to this BDG newsletter, you agree to our. Dr. Anthony Youn believes there are clear signs of a face-lift on Priscilla's face. But last year, China put the kibosh on . Yeah, in China you'll meet tons of people who had siblings born while the one-child policy was in effect. One night, family planning officials approached her husband, intending to pressure him and his wife into ending the pregnancy. While more time is needed to analyse the bans impacts domestically, it has had rippling effects across global plastic pollution and management. 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